


Heckin' Chunker for Love

by canistakahari



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Cats, M/M, Meet-Cute, POV Alternating
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-26
Updated: 2019-01-26
Packaged: 2019-10-17 06:56:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17555528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/canistakahari/pseuds/canistakahari
Summary: On the inside of the big floor to ceiling window of the office across the street, someone has used Post-it Notes to spell out a message:W H A T  I S  Y O U R  C A T ’ S  N A M E ?





	Heckin' Chunker for Love

**Author's Note:**

> A ficlet based on [this tweet](https://twitter.com/Erika_Strong/status/1088108670888693762). Chunk is a made up cat but parts of his personality and heft are exaggerated from the cats of my friends. Title courtesy my pal affectingly.
> 
> Nominated for a Hugo Award. ;)

When Bucky gets home from work, Chunk is waiting for him at the door, immediately weaving between his ankles and tripping him up.

“Hey,” says Bucky, carefully stepping over him to drop his keys and his bag. “Not bad for a murder attempt, but you need to branch out a bit. This strategy is getting a little old.”

Chunk yowls in response and runs to the kitchen, tail sticking straight up in the air. Bucky follows him, opening the fridge to grab yesterday's can of wet food. Peeling off the plastic lid, he grabs a spoon and stirs the mess inside around a little.

“Okay,” says Bucky mildly, when Chunk puts both enormous paws up on his leg and pushes with considerable force. “I know. Get out of here for a second.”

Chunk doesn’t listen and headbutts his empty bowl, scattering some leftover bits of kibble. Bucky puts his hand over Chunk's face and pushes him away long enough to scoop the can out into the bowl. Throwing himself bodily between Bucky's legs like a furry bowling ball, Chunk digs in.

“You're welcome,” Bucky mutters.

Washing his hands and tossing the can in the recycling, he heads for his bedroom.

He's got his shirt up and over his head before he realizes his curtains are wide open. Walking over to close them, something catches his eye across the street.

Bucky knows it's an office building, because it's always empty at night when Bucky gets home, but the fluorescent lights stay on. Cubicles and desks and whiteboards and computers are visible, and one office faces right into Bucky's bedroom. It's weird, sometimes, if Bucky is home during the day; he usually keeps the curtains closed.

Chunk likes to sit in the window, though, and Bucky wants him to get some sun, so he leaves the curtains open when he's out.

On the inside of the big floor to ceiling window of the office across the street, someone has used Post-it Notes to spell out a message:

> W H A T  I S  Y O U R  C A T ’ S  N A M E ?

While Bucky stares at the Post-it Note marquee in bemused delight, Chunk comes into the bedroom and leaps up onto the windowsill to join him, so Bucky scoops him up against his bare chest and points out the window.

“That's you,” he says, rubbing his nose into the fuzzy top of Chunk's head. “They want to know your name. You must sit and stare at the poor shmuck who works in that office all fuckin’ day, right?”

Chunk meows loudly in response to Bucky's question. He's got a real good ear for conversation. He actually even tolerates being held for a moment, his tail flicking against Bucky's elbow.

“Well,” says Bucky. “You can't introduce yourself, so I guess I'll do it for you.” Chunk puts both paws against his chest and pushes, the very tips of his claws digging into Bucky's flesh; he's ready to come down, so Bucky releases him, and he drops to the floor with a solid thump.

Better finish getting changed first.

The thing is, Bucky closes the curtains and strips out of his clothes to take a shower, and then he’s busy making dinner and falling asleep on the couch with Chunk purring loud right by his ear, and so he very naturally forgets.

In the morning, running a little late, he pulls open the curtains and Chunk leaps up onto the windowsill, and that's when Bucky remembers.

“Oh,” he says. “Shit. Tomorrow. Your office pal can wait, huh?”

He ruffles Chunk's ears and leaves for work.

That night, he closes his curtains and sees the Post-It Note plea, and spends almost half an hour searching his apartment for 1) paper 2) tape 3) a marker.

He wants to respond in kind, with Post-It Notes spelling out C H U N K, but he doesn't have any. He can barely find paper big enough to use, and when he decides he'll piece it together, he can't find any tape.

Short of writing directly on his window, Bucky can't introduce Chunk to his bored office worker friend.

He can print a sign at work, in big enough letters, and get some tape on the way home tomorrow.

oOo

Steve's kind of given up hope.

It's been almost two weeks and the person who lives in the apartment across from Steve's office hasn't responded.

Every day, while Steve sits at his desk, the spectacularly enormous orange marmalade cat that lives in the apartment will sit on the windowsill and keep him company.

Sometimes the cat just stares at him, and Steve starts to wonder how well and how far cats can see, and he ends up on Wikipedia for twenty minutes, his very important deadline-driven design work completely ignored. Across the street, the cat is still there, but he's stretched out into a loaf configuration and he looks like he's sleeping.

It's nice, to be able to look up and see him, rest his brain between jags of work, and the cat is so big. Majestic. He must weigh at least twenty five pounds.

He just wants to know what the cat is called. Maybe the occupant hasn't seen Steve's question, or maybe they saw it and forgot to respond.

Maybe they just don't want to, and that's fine.

Still.

Finally, his patience is rewarded. Steve comes in on an unremarkable Tuesday and when he looks across the street his heart leaps in his chest.

The cat is waiting on the windowsill. Taped to the window just above where he sits is a piece of printer paper. In thick black font, the sign reads:

> C H U N K

A diagonal arrow has also been helpfully drawn, pointing down at Chunk the cat. Steve makes a strangled, half-hysterical noise. Grabbing his phone, he snaps a photo, and realizes he's laughing as he does it.

“Chunk,” he whispers reverently. He immediately uploads the picture to the office’s general Slack channel.

 

 **stevengrogers** : my prayers were finally answered

 **stevengrogers** : the cat that lives across the street is named CHUNK

 **stevengrogers** : [attachment.jpg]

 **samwilson** : holy shit

 **nat** : [grinning heart-eyed cat emoji] [grinning heart-eyed cat emoji] [grinning heart-eyed cat emoji]

 **virginiapotts** : what a big boy!!!!!!

 **THOR** : tremendous

 **stevengrogers** : chunk!!!!! that’s my friend

 **tony** : that cat is immense

 **stevengrogers** : I KNOW

 

When he looks up again, Chunk has disappeared, but Steve doesn't care. His name is Chunk! Steve’s friend Chunk!

He'll be back to keep Steve company later.

oOo

About a month after Bucky finally remembers to print out Chunk's sign, he comes down with a miserable cold.

He calls in sick after he spends the entire night alternately coughing or retching, finally falling asleep for a couple of hours and sleeping through the morning.

Bucky wakes up again around ten, swaddled in a damp cave of blankets and coughing pitifully as he weakly digs himself out. Chunk is resting by his stomach, where he's been all night, purring restoratively, and it's sweet as fuck but also he's extremely warm and Bucky is dying.

“Blease,” he begs, pushing at Chunk's substantial rump. “Sir, I need you to move.”

Chunk huffs and lifts his weight from the bed. Bucky closes his eyes, admiring the technicolour throb of his headache on the inside of his eyelids. He's almost asleep again when Chunk meows.

It's not his food meow. Bucky peeled himself out of bed before dawn when he called in sick and dumped dry food in his bowl.

Chunk meows again, insistent. Rolling over slowly, Bucky opens his eyes and peers into the semi-darkness of the bedroom. Chunk is sitting on the floor by the window. When he sees Bucky paying attention, he rises up and bats at the curtain.

“No, pal,” groans Bucky. “People can see in.”

Chunks meows again stubbornly.

Jesus. Bucky's the out of place one, here. He shouldn't be home during the day. Who is he to deny the cat his singular pleasure of window TV?

Bucky is practically catatonic, anyway. He can sleep with daylight coming in, and the window doesn't look straight onto his bed.

“Okay,” he mumbles. He sniffles extravagantly, swings his legs onto the floor, and crosses the room to the window, yanking open the curtains.

Bucky hisses at the light that floods in, shading his eyes while Chunk heaves his weight up to the windowsill and contentedly settles down.

Narrowing his eyes against the bright sun, Bucky suddenly makes direct eye contact with the guy sitting in the office opposite him.

Big, broad, blond, staring right at him, while Bucky lurks half-naked in the window and briefly considers throwing himself to the floor on the off chance the guy didn't see him.

oOo

Holy shit.

Steve's never actually seen the human occupant of what he thinks of as Chunk's apartment.

The curtains were closed today when Steve got in at nine and sat down at his desk. Closed curtains meant no Chunk.

Disappointing, but livable. Closed Curtain Days aren’t common because it means Chunk's mysterious owner is probably home.

Which is exactly the case when the curtains wrench open just before lunch, enough movement that it catches Steve’s eye and he looks up.  
  
The first thing he sees is good old Chunk, leaping up onto the windowsill under the sign which is still stuck to the pane.

(Steve hasn’t taken his Post-its down either, unsure of the etiquette, though the apostrophe fell down.)

The next thing he sees is a whole lotta bare chest, broad and muscular and hairy, accompanied by strong arms and narrow hips. Those hips and everything between them are tucked into a snug pair of black boxer briefs. The window doesn’t go down far enough to show him what are sure to be long legs, but Steve’s cheeks are already burning as his drags his gaze up to the guy’s face.

Good face. Very good face. Strong, sharp jaw, maybe stubbled? It’s hard to tell from the distance of the street between them, but partly also because of the chaotic mess of shoulder length brown hair tumbling over his face.

There’s clear shock in his expression, though, like he didn’t expect someone to be sitting there staring at him, and Steve’s brain abruptly logs off in this crucial decision-making moment.

Should he look away? Get up and leave? What’s the protocol, here?

Mechanically and without his permission, Steve’s hand rises from his keyboard and he waves.

After a clear moment of hesitation, the guy waves back.

It’s a weird, condensed moment of time. They both stare at each other, then the guy backs out of view and disappears.

The curtains stay open, though, and Chunk stays in the window.

At lunch, Steve pulls the Post-it Notes down.

oOo

Bucky doesn’t really think about it too much.

He’s way too sick and tired to be bothered by Big Buff Blond seeing him in his underwear, and after their awkward shared wave, he rolls himself back into bed and sleeps the rest of the afternoon away.

He does notice that the Post-its have been removed when he’s closing the curtains that night, but he leaves his sign alone because he likes the idea that anyone looking up at his window during the day might have their same question answered about Chunk.

Bucky returns to work the next day, and nothing new appears in the window, so Bucky kind of forgets about it all again.

Life rolls on, the long, cold winter hammering down on Bucky’s spirit as he crawls through his routine.

One grey, bitter morning, he’s running so late for work that an extra ten minutes won’t make a difference, so he ducks into the Starbucks on the corner by his apartment to get a latte on the way. He’s texting his boss at the same time, only half-focused on where he’s putting his feet, when he walks directly into the solid wall of someone’s chest. A split second later, coffee splashes all over his left arm and Bucky stumbles back into the door, stunned.

“Oh my god,” blurts the person that belongs to the coffee. “Chunk!”

“What?” Bucky says dumbly. The guy clutching the half empty paper cup is big, and buff, and blond. He has very blue eyes, and he’s wearing a puffy bomber jacket, unzipped, a dress shirt and tie visible under it.

It’s the kind of outfit you wear when you work in an office.

“Post-it Note guy?” Bucky says hysterically. His coat sleeve is dripping coffee onto the floor, so Bucky shakes it out a bit.

“Oh my god,” repeats Big Buff Blond, evidently kick-started into action. He produces a wad of napkins from his pocket and starts to ineffectually dab at Bucky. “I am so sorry!”

“It’s okay,” says Bucky. “I can’t really feel it.”  
  
“Shit. Fuck.” Big Buff Blond’s face scrunches up, gaze fixed on Bucky’s sleeve as he tries to wipe up the worst of the stain. Most of it has soaked into the coat already and Bucky becomes distantly aware of a damp unpleasantness seeping into his sweater; his left arm has a lot of nerve damage, though, and it doesn’t register temperature well. Hopefully the coffee hasn’t actually scalded him. He’ll find out at work.

The exterior door opens and they both move aside to let a woman go by them into the Starbucks while they continue their vestibule shuffle between the two sets of doors.

“Really,” insists Bucky. “It was my fault. I wasn’t watching where I was going.”

“Still,” says Big Buff Blond miserably. “Can I buy you a drink?”

“Um,” says Bucky. His face feels hot. He is suddenly and debilitatingly aware of how attractive this guy is, and how a few weeks ago, they waved at each other across the street while Bucky was in his underwear.

God, it wasn’t a fever dream. It actually happened.

“I’m Steve,” says Big Buff Blond. Thank god, Bucky can finally apply a name to the stupid description his brain keeps subbing in. “Here, come on, let me get some more napkins inside, and I’ll buy you whatever you were going to get.” He smiles encouragingly and Bucky makes an involuntary noise of agreement.

He follows Steve inside to the counter. He orders his drink, and when the barista asks what to write on the cup, he says, “Bucky.” Steve doesn’t even blink, just orders a refill of his own drink and pays for them both.

Standing by the bar, Steve breaks the fraught silence between them by saying, “Bucky? I love your cat.”  
  
“Oh,” says Bucky. “Thanks. He’s too fat.”  
  
“Yeah,” says Steve, but he sounds like he thinks that’s one of Chunk’s best qualities. “Thanks for indulging me. He keeps me company every day.”  
  
He’s smiling brightly again and Bucky almost can’t look directly at his handsome face. “I’m glad he makes you happy, too,” says Bucky. He feels like his soul has vacated his own stupid, traitorous body, floating somewhere just beyond this plane of existence. “I mean. That’s nice. To think about. That he can—make someone happy, just by...being there,” he finishes lamely.

“Listen,” says Steve. “Not to be weird, but can I have your—”

“Venti peppermint latte with no whip for... Bucky?”  
  
“Thanks,” says Bucky, accepting his drink. “And thanks,” he says, this time to Steve. “You didn’t have to get this.”

“My pleasure,” says Steve. “The least I could do for almost bowling you over.”

“I have to… I was late when I came in,” Bucky says apologetically. “I really have to go.”  
  
“Okay,” says Steve. He definitely sounds a little disappointed. “It was nice to, uh, meet you. Sorry, again.”  
  
Bucky hesitates. What could Steve have been about to ask him for, if not his number? Is that presumptuous? Steve had stared at him, stared all down Bucky’s body—

“He does a lot of dumb shit in places other than the window,” Bucky hears himself saying from a million miles away. “Chunk, that is. If I had your number I could send you pictures.”  
  
Steve’s answering smile is blinding.

They exchange numbers.

Bucky gets to work almost an entire hour late, and he doesn’t give a single, solitary fuck.

—-

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [對街遇見一隻貓](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17564552) by [sashach](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sashach/pseuds/sashach)




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